Slayers are weak

[buffy2015]

Someone was trying to argue with me that slayers are weak, because faith got beat by the beast, and apparently Angel a simple vampire has saved buffy several times. I fail to see this reasoning. Can someone please tell me how slayers are weak? Am I just dumb as hell? they said that a slayer would lose 10 seconds in a fight in real life. They're weak and have no skills at all. I'm confused.

 

[The Bronze]

You're confused because you've been speaking with an idiot. Move on and put the incident behind you

 

[buffy2015]

Thank you lol. I mean I understand how faith would have gotten beat by the beast, she was in prison

 

[EVIL UU]

fight in real life

slayer

What kind of nonsense is this?

No, for real. Slayer is like a Terminator - she only looks like a human. There's a cool little scene in "The Harvest" where Buffy jumps over a fence twice her height from standing still. That's how strong she is. And that's nothing compared to her healing abilities which are positively ridiculous. And her hearing. And her reflexes. And her resistance to blunt trauma. Seriously, the slayer is very strong.

Doesn't mean she's invulnerable. She's weak against hypnosis and generally defenceless against magic. Sharp things, bullets and whatnot will hurt her.

Angel a simple vampire has saved buffy several times

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that Angel saved Buffy's life once - in "Earshot". Willow, Xander and Giles do it far, far more often.

 

[thetopher]

Slayers are strong because they are the ultimate human/demon hybrid. Their stronger/more skilled than most vampires, and better trained/smarter than your average demon.

The things that out and out are shown being more powerful than a slayer are:

Adam: Unique human/demon/robot hybrid- one of a kind.
Glory: Hell-God. Also pretty unique.
Dark Willow: Uber-Witch with years of extreme effort, some natural talent and access to a couple of seriously powerful magical batteries on hand.
The Beast: Rock demon that defeated Angel and the entire Fang Gang (all well armed) without much effort. As well as defeating a slayer (out-of-practice, unarmed)
(Probably) Jasmine/Illyria: Higher power/Old One respectivly. Again pretty unique.

Everything else has (after maybe getting lucky once) been simply out-fought and had their asses kicked/gotten killed given enough time and circumstance; true demons, ancient vampires (The Master, Luke, Kakistos- some of the oldest on record), that order of assassins from S2, Mohra demon, Turok-Han, Caleb, ec.

 

[Fuffy Baith]

Slayers are most certainly not weak. But weak is also a relative term. To Glory and The Beast, a slayer is a bit weak, but to people. vampires and most demons the slayer is stronger. I don't think Buffy would have done much better than Faith at fighting the Beast, she may have lasted a bit longer, but ultimately it's Angelus stabbing the beast with "a part of himself" (although I don't remember where he got that from). And he didn't do it to save Faith, he did it for selfish reasons.

 

[TheComeBackKid]

Slayers are not weak. They outmatch vampires and many demons with their strength and skill alone. However, beings such as Glory, Illyria and Jasmine are far more powerful than slayers and therefore view them as being weak, referring to them as only being "strong for a human". Slayers are not the most powerful beings out there but they are defiantly not weak.

 

[white avenger]

Someone was trying to argue with me that slayers are weak, because Faith got beat by the beast, and apparently Angel a simple vampire has saved Buffy several times. I fail to see this reasoning. Can someone please tell me how slayers are weak? Am I just dumb as hell? they said that a slayer would lose 10 seconds in a fight in real life. They're weak and have no skills at all. I'm confused.

This argument makes little or no sense. The fact that Faith was beaten by a virtually invulnerable demon doesn't make her weak, except as compared to the Beast specifically. Saying that Slayers are weak simply because one specific demon was able to beat one specific Slayer is as illogical as saying that all Slayers are stronger than all vampires. We know that Angel said once that Buffy was stronger than him, but nowhere is it implied that Angel is the strongest vampire, or even close to t. Remember the Master's minion, Luke, "You're strong. I'm stronger,"? If one vampire is stronger than one vampire doesn't make all vampires stronger than all Slayers, then having one demon stronger than one, or even all, Slayers, doesn't mean that Slayers are weak, it simply means that there are things stronger than them. It would be a pretty boring show if Buffy was able to simply squash every vampire or demon that she ever met, no strain, no danger. Where would the excitement and action be in that?

 

[Spanky]

It would be a pretty boring show if Buffy was able to simply squash every vampire or demon that she ever met, no strain, no danger.

But she was able to. That's why they started to move away from vampires and/or demons as threats. They turned her into an invincible being. Would Buffy, post season 4, have any problem at all dealing with Luke? No. None at all. I mean she staked Dracula for pete's sake. I posit that they should have kept her 'weak' and she wasn't 'weak' enough.

 

[TheComeBackKid]

But she was able to. That's why they started to move away from vampires and/or demons as threats. They turned her into an invincible being. Would Buffy, post season 4, have any problem at all dealing with Luke? No. None at all. I mean she staked Dracula for pete's sake. I posit that they should have kept her 'weak' and she wasn't 'weak' enough.

I agree with you to some extent. Buffy became stronger as the series progressed. But I wouldn't say that Buffy was turned into an invincible being. Take for instance, Glory, Adam, Dark Willow and Caleb. To beat Adam, the Scoobies had to use the enjoining spell to make Buffy stronger. To defeat Glory, It took a spell from Willow, the Dagonsphere, the Buffybot, multiple hits with a god hammer and a wrecking ball. Buffy never defeated Dark Willow, Xander did as the magic that Willow stole from Giles tapped into her emotions. Xander's love speech stopped her in the end. To beat Caleb, Buffy had to use the slayer scythe. In a full one on one fight, all four of the villains have stomped or beaten Buffy. The only reason why Buffy defeated these beings is because she had help or a weapon at her disposal.

 

[gite63]

It would be a pretty boring show if Buffy was able to simply squash every vampire or demon that she ever met, no strain, no danger. Where would the excitement and action be in that?

But she was able to. That's why they started to move away from vampires and/or demons as threats. They turned her into an invincible being. Would Buffy, post season 4, have any problem at all dealing with Luke? No.

Buffy evolved, she became a better fighter, she has survived while the Slayers that came before her died at a very young age. Now, in the comics, the vampires evolved, too - they have many powers, they are (a little) harder to kill.

All this have made the show evolve and survive and be hard to kill.

 

[white avenger]

Buffy evolved, she became a better fighter, she has survived while the Slayers that came before her died at a very young age. Now, in the comics, the vampires evolved, too - they have many powers, they are (a little) harder to kill.

All this have made the show evolve and survive and be hard to kill.

Certainly, Buffy evolved. She gained experience, learned new tricks and strategies from the very demons and vampires that she hunted and killed, and became probably one of the most formidable Slayers since the Shadow Men created the first one. Formidable doesn't necessarily equate as physical strength, or Buffy would have been a vampire happy meal by the end of Season 2. Fighting demons, and, yes, vampires, was something that Buffy did from the very beginning. What made her unique among Slayers was what she was trying to teach the Potentials in Season 7. Pick your fights. Brain power, applied properly, will almost always beat muscle power. Charging blindly into a fight, fists and weapons flying, was the favorite tactic of the Viking Berserkers. Guess what. They did a hell of a lot of damage for awhile, then they died. Poor strategy in the long run.

Buffy surpassed Giles long before Spike pointed it out in Season 7, it just took her that long to figure it out for herself. Probably, most other Slayers would have been able to do the same thing, if they had lived long enough. hey just never got the chance.

 

[thetopher]

Charging blindly into a fight

Then again, Buffy did that in S7 as well...so she still made mistakes in spite of all her training.

What made Buffy different from other slayers was, ultimately, she wasn't alone in her fighting those dark forces.

 

[white avenger]

Then again, Buffy did that in S7 as well...so she still made mistakes in spite of all her training.

What made Buffy different from other slayers was, ultimately, she wasn't alone in her fighting those dark forces.

No matter how great and extensive Buffy's training and experience might have been by Season 7, she was still capable of making mistakes, as witnessed by her multiple fights with the ubervamp and Caleb, and she was damn lucky that she got away with something like that. Buffy is an excellent fighter, possibly even a great one, but that doesn't make her a perfect fighter, there simply isn't any such thing.

And, yes, Buffy's friends were a great help to her, even a determining factor. They literally kept her alive while she was learning how to become something much more than Watcher cannon fodder, but simply staying alive isn't all that helpful if you don't continue to learn and adapt while you're avoiding death. The learning, Buffy had to pretty much do all on her own.

 

[bespangeled]

they said that a slayer would lose 10 seconds in a fight in real life.

If you're talking real life - 30 rounds from a semi-automatic - then yeah. But then you have a totally different show with a totally different paradigm

But she was able to. That's why they started to move away from vampires and/or demons as threats. They turned her into an invincible being. Would Buffy, post season 4, have any problem at all dealing with Luke? No. None at all. I mean she staked Dracula for pete's sake. I posit that they should have kept her 'weak' and she wasn't 'weak' enough.

I do agree that they had to up the ante, and it could have become real pain. I was still willing to believe, but I can see why others might balk. In fact, I think that's part of why the First is such a weak opponent - mainly it taunts, until Caleb comes along. My willing suspension of disbelief completely died with the sacred women camping in a tent to guard a shiny axe until the right slayer comes along.

 

[Spanky]

I was still willing to believe... My willing suspension of disbelief completely died with the sacred women camping in a tent to guard a shiny axe until the right slayer comes along.

That's when it died? Wow. That's alot of belief. If you were in Neverland you wouldn't need fairy dust to fly!

 

[Mr Trick]

I think they did more than enough to show Buffy's weaknesses. In the early season it just became like a genatic thing that she would dust the regular vamps without much fuss because it would make for a smooth opening scene or because the scene would be used to set up the theme of that episode somehow, but then there would be bigger challenges in store later.

After awhile it is a given than you maybe just except that Buffy is going to win (except that she did actually die more then once) as its just a convention of tv and film. But who cares really?